Gordon Brown's support for Israel following its barbaric attack on the Palestinian people of the Gaza is obscene.

The day after the massacre ended - so as not to spoil Barack Obama's inauguration with pictures of phosphorous bombs dropping on UN schools in Gaza - Brown rushed off to join five        other heads of government for a celebratory gala dinner at the Jerusalem home of Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert,      alongside Olmert's compatriots in mass murder, defence minister Ehud Barak & foreign minister Tzipi Livni.

"Thank you for demonstrating your impressive support for the State of Israel", said Olmert. "This is in the supreme interest of all those who fight the forces of evil," among whom he no doubt meant the 450 children in Gaza killed by Israel over the past three weeks.

To which Brown replied, without a sliver of irony, "The task before us is… an end to arms trafficking." Not, of course, the arms trafficking which makes Israel the fourth most powerful military nation in the world, able to use the most advanced weapons of mass slaughter to kill 1400 Palestinians & injure 6000 more.

"Through the anguish & the suffering, we can see the road toward peace," Brown added, as if all the mass death, injuries & destruction, which left Gaza looking like it had been hit by an earthquake, would in some way benefit the cause of peace.

But is any of this a surprise?

Like Blair, Brown’s arch-zionist credentials are well established.

To begin with, Gordon Brown has appointed Israel apologists to key positions in his government, with arch-Zionist James Purnell heading the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has oversight responsibilities for the British media, including the BBC, and Douglas Alexander, a recipient of Labour Friends of Israel hospitality, taking over the Department for International Development.

They are complemented by another Israel apologist, Jim Murphy, who has become minister of state for Europe with responsibility for the BBC World Service and the British Council. Mr Murphy served as chairman of Labour Friends of Israel during 2000-02 and has also been a member of the Anglo-Israeli All-Party Parliamentary Group.

In addition, Gordon Brown has appointed Simon McDonald, a former British ambassador to Israel and a man described by Israeli officials as "a true friend to Israel", as his chief foreign policy adviser.

Another Israel fanatic, Meg Munn, becomes parliamentary under-secretary of state with responsibility for foreign affairs. Ms Munn is a former chairwoman of Labour Friends of Israel and is a recipient of hospitality from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Gordon Brown has also been at pain to stress his Christian Zionist credentials. In a speech to the Labour Friends of Israel annual fundraising dinner in April 2007, quoted by the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post, Brown described how his father, a Presbyterian preacher, had been a passionate supporter of Israel who had taken him to the racist Jews-only state at least twice a year for most of his adult life to show solidarity with the usurpers of Palestinian land.